Scales: Of Justice (Broken But ... Mending Book 3) Read Online Free

enough that he didn’t want to change that state again. Change hurt.
    The frailty of the human condition was something he understood well.
    And he didn’t want to crash and burn. Rebuilding was hard. It took a long time. He had a lot of respect for those working on their own issues. But he’d made it to a point of not having to do more. It was possible to stop here at this stage if he wanted to. He’d done enough. He was good now.
    Resetting his attention on Paris, he noticed her wispy long hair and super clean nails with the ragged edges. Her fingernails had ragged edges. He wondered at the familiarity he now recognized, the general look to her. Then he knew. It shouldn’t have taken him so long. After all, he’d met many of them.
    “You’re a nurse.”
    She spun. “What?” Her voice squeaked out just the one shocked word.
    His eyebrows shot up. Interesting response.
    “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to get personal. It just occurred to me that you look like a nurse.”
    Her eyes darkened as she stared at him, taking a step back. They’d been hazel, but damn if they didn’t look green now. She muttered something under her breath and turned away, almost racing toward the restaurant now.
    Skittish, like a colt, he thought to himself, content to follow at a slower pace, wondering at the woman in front of him. She was an enigma.
    And he was fascinated.

Chapter 4

    W hat the hell was wrong with her? Weaver was just another man. She worked with dozens of them. Most were decent, hardworking, take-their-paychecks-home-to-the-family kind of guys. There were a few players. Nurses were notorious for getting hit upon. It had been a joke in college with the engineers. As if they were a natural pairing. The guys had certainly believed it. As nurses had been generally pretty, compassionate, and nice people, they’d always been popular. If you knew one nurse and invited her to a party, then everyone hoped she’d bring her fellow students.
    Paris got along with all the men at work, but she never got involved with any. She loved her job and would never do anything to jeopardize it. Her focus at work was babies. Mothers and babies. But mostly babies. Even being here for the week was pulling at her, making her worried about the patients she’d left behind. She trusted her coworkers; they were a brilliant team of specialists and cared about the patients as much as she did.
    But nothing compared to the joy of the babies themselves. She adored them and wanted a half dozen but knew realistically two or three were more reasonable. Even if she couldn’t have them herself. There were many babies out there needing someone to love them. And love was something she had in abundance. When the time was right, she would adopt.
    Right now, though, she wasn’t ready.
    That was partly why she was here.
    To become ready. To deal with her failures. Her belief she didn’t deserve more. To deal with her lacks. Come to terms with the things in her life she could never have. Never experience. Adjust to her situation. To the injustice of it.
    And damn, that brought her back around to Jenna and her words. Something she had said about her and Weaver being on the opposite sides of Justice. How did that work? In her head, Paris knew right and wrong was a gray area. It depended entirely on the situation. She had to believe that or else she would have turned herself in. And of course that was the problem – she couldn’t believe that theory one hundred percent – but she wanted to. She was always looking over her shoulder, afraid that a mistake had been made in the system and the police were coming after her now. She wanted to be free of that fear.
    “How about over there?”
    Pulled back to the present, Paris glanced over at the window seat that Weaver had pointed out. “That’s fine,” she muttered. It was actually better than fine – it looked cozy, intimate in a way. This immediately brought to mind the heat of Weaver’s hand on her back